Title text: Coconuts are so far down to the left they couldn't be fit on the chart. Ever spent half an hour trying to open a coconut with a rock? Fuck coconuts.

Explanation

This comic consists of a chart where Randall has plotted fruits according to two criteria: ease/difficulty to eat on the horizontal axis, and tastiness on the vertical axis. The Y-axis goes from "tasty" at the top, to "untasty" at the bottom. The X-axis goes from "easy" on the right to "difficult" on the left.

For instance, pineapples are deemed fairly tasty but very difficult to eat, whereas (seeded) grapes are very tasty and somewhat easy, and logically seedless grapes are roughly equally tasty but easier to eat.

Obviously being easy to eat is preferable to being difficult, and being tasty is preferable to being untasty, so the "best" fruits (regarding these two aspects only) are in the top-right corner, and the worst in the bottom-left; additionally, in the top-left corner are the "difficult-but-worthy" fruits, and in the bottom-right one, the "not-so-tasty-but-easy-anyway" ones.

The individual ratings of each fruit are subjective; very obviously in the case of tastiness, and more subtly for difficulty. Randall does not explain his criteria for ranking the difficulty of each fruit, and it is likely based on simply personal experiences. Someone who has grown up in an area where pineapples are plentiful is likely to be more adept at skillfully preparing them. The discrepancies between how Randall has rated certain fruits and how others believe they should have been rated caused a surprising level of controversy.

According to the chart, Grapefruit is the third hardest fruit to eat as well as the second least tasty fruit (from the ones listed at least). Eating one of them is like spending too much of one's time and energy without much reward. Hence Randall's quip in the title: "Fuck grapefruit".

In the title text Randall mentions coconuts. Randall mentions that he would have to put them so far down to the left on the chart (not far down, just far down towards the left), that they would not fit in this chart. He thus states that it is so much more difficult to eat (especially to open) coconuts than the usual mainstream fruits such as the ones plotted here. If he did include coconuts in the chart the rest of the fruits would all be pushed to the right side of the chart. He does not say that he does not like to eat the fruit. (Although it has "nut" in its name, the coconut is actually a stone fruit and thus belongs on a chart of fruit.) Having spent half an hour trying (in vain?) to open a coconut, Randall also only has one thing to say about them: "Fuck coconuts".

Table

The table below lists approximate coordinates for each fruit using a scale of -100% (untasty/difficult) to 100% (tasty/easy). The coordinates are based on the included fruits, any new items added outside the current range (e.g. Coconuts) would cause the scales to be reassigned, and thus change the coordinate values of existing items.

The coordinated have been found by measuring each fruit from the center of the drawing (not center of mass, but center from left to right/top to bottom) to the two axes. The axes are hand drawn which is clearly visible. The numbers have been obtained be measuring to the nearest point of each axis, not taking into account that the axes are not perfect straight perpendicular lines.

Among Randall's favorite fruits, as it is the one deemed most tasty and it is far more tasty than the four fruits that are deemed easier to eat. While it does contain a stone/pit which may be annoying due to disposal of the sticky remains, it's large enough to eat around and Randall apparently sees it not to be that big a problem in the long run.

Surprisingly considered by Randall to be easier than oranges, which are fairly easy to peel. A watermelon is larger, so the effort to reward ratio is better, but this should't affect its 'ease of eating' position. On the other hand, it is easy to cut a watermelon into edible pieces. You cannot cut an orange like this and they can sometimes be very difficult to peel and you will get very sticky when trying. This can be avoided with the watermelon.

Most people will not eat the apple core and is thus left with some sticky part that need to be disposed. It is unclear why green apples are shown as tastier than red; in his "What If?" book, Randall mentions a specific dislike of "red delicious" apples.

Shown in the chart as difficult to eat, even though they are among the most easily peeled fruit. This could be because of the skin which must be disposed of, or the stringy pith which some people refuse to eat and thus have to pick off. Also you do have to peel it, which is not the case for the easier fruits.

The culinary arts, nutritional sciences, and United States tax and customs regulations all treat tomatoes as a vegetable, mostly due to its taste. In the botanical sense however, it is actually a fruit (specifically, a berry).

Considered easier than oranges, perhaps due to the layer of pith which is rarely encountered when preparing lemons.

Controversy

As evident from the above section, and according to FRUIT OPINIONS! on the Blag, this was the most controversial comic written to this point, beating out comics about cunnilingus, the Obama endorsement, and my making 4chan tiny on the map of the internet.

Transcript

[An X-Y scatter plot of fruit where both axes have arrows in both ends. At the end of each arrow is a label.]

[The X-axis from left to right:]

Difficult

Easy

[The Y-axis from top to bottom:]

Tasty

Untasty

[The fruit names are listed here below from top to bottom according to the how tasty the fruit is, not necessarily in the same order that the names are written if one fruit is tall/large and the other low:]

Discussion

Why are seeded grapes deemed more tasty than seedless grapes? Them seeds taste awful and bitter when you accidentally bite into them. Davidy22 (talk) 12:22, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah! And red apples are clearly more tasty than green (unless you're using them for cooking), and bananas are the tastiest fruit ever! In other words, it's all subjective. (You might argue that the seeds add to the flavour, much like a small amout of fat in meat; obviously the fact that they're less easy implies pulling all the seeds out first to make sure you don't bite one.) 94.0.161.247 10:34, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Seedless grapes (and seedless versions of other fruits) are often considered to be slightly less tasty than their seeded counterparts because a compromise was made: putting all efforts toward being tasty and easy to grow, versus dividing the effort between those and making them seedless. Additionally, some seedless fruits (including certain brands or breeds) are simply less mature versions of their seedless equivalent (this is part of why some bunches of seedless grapes have seeds in many of the fruits, albeit smaller and/or fewer seeds than the seeded equivalent). It's also possible that the y-axis difference between the two was unintentional, but there's enough of a difference that I'm strongly in favor of interpreting it as intentional. JET73L (talk) 17:34, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with the placement of bananas and pears. They are both really easy and reasonably tasty (although taste is a matter of personal preference).75.69.96.225 21:54, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Problem is, pomegranates burn calories instead of adding to them. Unless you get pre-picked. There should be a third axis, but alas, with a webcomic, it is not possible. 108.162.216.45 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Fyi to open a coconut, do not smash a rock against the coconut, smash the coconut against the rock! 193.188.240.138 14:30, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

A rock? Is this a deserted island scenario you're describing? Most households have something called a hammer. Tharkon (talk) 03:24, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

A hammer? Is this a woodwork shed scenario? ;) A professional coconut opener uses one or two strokes from the blunt side of a machete on the equator of the coconut. I still agree with Randall on the difficulty, though. More specialized equipment is neeeded to separate the copra. And it's not tasty either.Mumiemonstret (talk) 09:05, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Not unless you eat an Almond Joy! ...Unless you're allergic to nuts that is. In that case, you might never get to try an Almond Joy. (Dang it... now I want one. xD) --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 15:04, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, yes, there's that. The only problem = same with the "beer" comic, dark chocolate isn't that good. Should it be safe to just say we're pretending to like it? Because everyone I know (including me) think it doesn't taste good. --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 11:12, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Is there a program do make charts looking like these? With the little pictures in the chart. RecentlyChanged (talk) 13:26, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes. The program is called "Paper and Pencil; and something to color them."SarcasticMoe (talk) 25:61, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The transcript needs fixing. It is currently inaccurate in places, like, for example, strawberries in the comic are placed below seeded grapes on the tastiness axis, but the transcript says that strawberries are tastier than seeded grapes. Also, the transcript is missing seedless grapes. 108.162.216.45 03:48, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I have changed the transcrip so that the explanation part is removed. And this part I have now added as a table and in this corrected the numbers so strawberries and grapes are in the correct order etc. At the same time I made many other corrections and improvements for the entire explanation. --Kynde (talk) 10:22, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

While I disagree with the rating in tastyness... Then it is true that bananas is more difficult to start eating than fruit without peel - like pears. However, bananas are very easy to peel! And you do not get sticky as with a fresh pear. I thus think it is easier to eat bananas than pears because of that.Kynde (talk) 07:30, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

It's all subjective anyway. I, for example consider bananas to be more tasty than pears. Tharkon (talk) 20:09, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem with bananas which adds to their difficulty is that you have a rather large peel. You can't get away with just tossing your peel anywhere, too. Someone might slip on them. 173.245.48.181 19:58, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I can't believe nobody has stuck up for the deliciousness of by far the most underrated fruit on this chart, tomatoes. 141.101.105.24 03:05, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

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